Joseph Casorso and Ethel Winship

Ethel and Joe Casorso

Joseph Casorso, an Okanagan's native, died in Kelowna General Hospital in the spring of 1960. Joe had the distinction of not only being born in Kelowna, BC, but of making his fortune within ten miles of where he was born. Joe's first experience of what hard work and shrewd management can do, in the way of bringing financial success, came as a result of the family's venture into growing onions. 

In 1910, Joe strayed briefly from farming into horse racing. In spite of an early financial success with horse racing, Joe could see that as a method of making a fortune, horse racing had too much chance attached to it, so he sold the horse.

His next venture was in the retail meat business. He tried to persuade his father that the family should set up a family butcher shop and sell the farm livestock direct to the consumer. Some three hundred Kelowna citizens promised their patronage if Casorso's would open a butcher shop.

Some of Joe's foresight shows up very clearly in this meat retailing enterprise. Instead of renting a little shop space somewhere on the main street and trying to get along on a shoestring, they built a large two storey building and included an ice plant in it. The ice plant was not just big enough to keep the meat cool, it was big enough to keep every ice box in Kelowna full and supply all the ice for icing the railway cars, that took fruit out of Kelowna, for the next twenty years. When World War I broke out in 1914 the economic life of Kelowna practically came to a standstill. No new settlers came in and a quarter of the male population of the area joined up to go overseas.

Had it not been for the whole hearted co-operation of the citizens of Kelowna, the Casorso Meat enterprise might have folded. Toward the middle of the war, things picked up. 

Joe was a genius at the retail business, but it was too slow for him. He wanted room to make bigger deals on his own, unhampered by family participation. In the early 1920s, he turned the management of the Meat Market over to others and went after bigger game.

Joe had a go at the vegetable business. Nothing spectacular came of the vegetables so he bought a sixteen acre apple orchard in Rutland. His next venture was to buy the Belgo Land and Orchard Company, a hundred acres of orchard land with a thousand acres or so of range land and hay. This hay and range land later became his Black Mountain Cattle and Sheep ranch.

Thereafter, he concentrated his attention on developing his Black Mountain cattle ranch and buying land. His wife, Ethel Winship, who died in 1946, was a New Zealander. She persuaded him to go in for sheep and sheep became one of his most profitable enterprises besides being the one that gave him most enjoyment.

Adapted from an article by Nigel Pooley, in the 24th Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 1960.